← All companies ← IHRT Manual IIIV → ← GGB Steel MT →

IIIN, Insteel Industries Inc.

Steel capital-intensive

Insteel Industries Inc. is the nation's largest manufacturer of steel wire reinforcing products for concrete construction applications.

We manufacture and market prestressed concrete strand ("PC strand") and welded wire reinforcement ("WWR"), including ESM, concrete pipe reinforcement ("CPR") and standard welded wire reinforcement ("SWWR").

Our products are sold mainly to manufacturers of concrete products that are used primarily in nonresidential construction.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

IIIN · Insteel Industries Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$648M

+22.4% YoY · 7% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $708M 5-yr avg $649M

Gross margin 12% 5-yr avg 16%

Operating margin 6.7% 5-yr avg 10.7%

ROIC 10% 5-yr avg 20%

Owner-earnings margin −1% 5-yr avg 8%

Free cash flow margin −1% 5-yr avg 7%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Welded Wire Reinforcement (66%) and PC Strand (34%).
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 14% and operating margin about 8.3% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. On a spread this thin the operating result swings hard on small moves in cost or volume — it has ranged from 1.7% to 20% over the years, so the cost line is where the needle moves. Inventory runs near 17% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the commodity price and the cost position. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 13%). By owner earnings: roughly 8% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Welded Wire Reinforcement is 66% of revenue, with PC Strand the other meaningful line at 34%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Welded Wire Reinforcement66%$425M
PC Strand34%$223M

By geographyUnited States99%International1%

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

Most recent quarterly filing 10-Q filed Jul 16, 2026 Source at SEC EDGAR →

Revenue up 9.9% year over year; operating income down 40.9%

figures computed from the filing's XBRL

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMJun 2026
											Income statement
$419M	$389M	$453M	$456M	$473M	$591M	$827M	$649M	$529M	$648M	$708M	RevenueRevenue
20%	15%	16%	7%	12%	21%	24%	10%	9%	14%	12%	Gross marginGross mgn
6%	7%	6%	5%	7%	5%	4%	5%	6%	6%	5%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$56M	$34M	$43M	$8M	$24M	$86M	$162M	$42M	$25M	$54M	$47M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
13.5%	8.8%	9.4%	1.7%	5.1%	14.6%	19.6%	6.4%	4.8%	8.3%	6.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$37M	$23M	$36M	$6M	$19M	$67M	$125M	$32M	$19M	$41M	$36M	Net incomeNet inc.
34%	34%	15%	25%	21%	23%	23%	22%	24%	24%	23%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$56M	$21M	$54M	$7M	$56M	$70M	$6M	$142M	$58M	$27M	$1M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$12M	$12M	$13M	$14M	$14M	$15M	$14M	$13M	$15M	$18M	$18M	DepreciationDeprec.
$5M	($16M)	$3M	($15M)	$21M	($13M)	($136M)	$94M	$20M	($36M)	($57M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$13M	$21M	$18M	$11M	$7M	$18M	$16M	$31M	$19M	$8M	$11M	CapexCapex
3.1%	5.3%	4.1%	2.3%	1.5%	3.0%	1.9%	4.7%	3.6%	1.3%	1.5%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$43M	$9M	$41M	($4M)	$49M	$52M	($10M)	$129M	$39M	$19M	($10M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
10.3%	2.4%	9.1%	−0.9%	10.4%	8.9%	−1.2%	19.9%	7.4%	2.9%	−1.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$43M	$265K	$36M	($4M)	$49M	$52M	($10M)	$111M	$39M	$19M	($10M)	Free cash flowFCF
10.3%	0.1%	7.8%	−0.9%	10.4%	8.9%	−1.2%	17.2%	7.4%	2.9%	−1.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	$3M	$0	$18M	$0	$0	$0	$0	$72M	$33K	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$21M	$26M	$21M	$2M	$2M	$31M	$41M	$41M	$51M	$22M	$22M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$1M	$2M	$2M	$2M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
23%	12%	18%	3%	10%	31%	37%	13%	8%	12%	10%	ROICROIC
17%	10%	15%	2%	7%	22%	32%	8%	6%	11%	10%	Return on equityROE
7%	−2%	6%	1%	6%	12%	22%	−2%	−9%	5%	4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$59M	$32M	$44M	$38M	$69M	$90M	$48M	$126M	$112M	$39M	$23M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$47M	$40M	$51M	$44M	$54M	$68M	$82M	$63M	$58M	$79M	$81M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$71M	$82M	$94M	$71M	$69M	$79M	$198M	$103M	$89M	$138M	$167M	InventoryInvent.
$43M	$34M	$60M	$22M	$39M	$49M	$47M	$34M	$37M	$48M	$65M	Accounts payablePayables
$76M	$88M	$86M	$93M	$84M	$98M	$233M	$132M	$110M	$168M	$182M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$180M	$160M	$195M	$161M	$197M	$247M	$335M	$299M	$267M	$262M	$279M	Current assetsCur. assets
$54M	$42M	$72M	$28M	$54M	$69M	$63M	$46M	$47M	$66M	$78M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.4×	3.8×	2.7×	5.7×	3.7×	3.6×	5.4×	6.5×	5.7×	4.0×	3.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$7M	$7M	$8M	$8M	$10M	$10M	$10M	$10M	$10M	$38M	$38M	GoodwillGoodwill
$293M	$283M	$330M	$293M	$338M	$391M	$472M	$448M	$423M	$463M	$474M	Total assetsAssets
357.3×	252.2×	374.9×	45.4×	229.0×	897.9×	1778.2×	480.9×	285.1×	1035.7×	790.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$225M	$223M	$242M	$246M	$265M	$302M	$390M	$382M	$351M	$372M	$371M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.6%	0.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.5%	0.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
19.1M	19.2M	19.3M	19.3M	19.4M	19.5M	19.6M	19.6M	19.6M	19.6M	19.5M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$21.97	$20.24	$23.51	$23.56	$24.38	$30.23	$42.12	$33.18	$27.03	$33.12	$36.22	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.95	$1.17	$1.88	$0.29	$0.98	$3.41	$6.37	$1.66	$0.99	$2.10	$1.86	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.27	$0.48	$2.13	$-0.20	$2.53	$2.68	$-0.52	$6.59	$2.00	$0.97	$-0.50	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.27	$0.01	$1.84	$-0.20	$2.53	$2.68	$-0.52	$5.70	$2.00	$0.97	$-0.50	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.09	$1.35	$1.11	$0.12	$0.12	$1.60	$2.10	$2.11	$2.60	$1.11	$1.11	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.68	$1.07	$0.96	$0.54	$0.37	$0.90	$0.81	$1.57	$0.98	$0.42	$0.55	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$11.79	$11.62	$12.54	$12.72	$13.66	$15.46	$19.86	$19.50	$17.92	$19.00	$19.01	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+4.7%/yr	+6.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−9.0%/yr	−17.5%/yr
EPS	+0.8%/yr	+16.4%/yr
Dividends / share	+0.2%/yr	+56.3%/yr
Capital spending / share	−5.2%/yr	+2.7%/yr
Book value / share	+5.4%/yr	+6.8%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

20Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

12%low FY2019

Gross margin

14%low FY2019

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$19Mowner earningsvs.$41Mnet incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business reported $41M of profit but $19M of owner earnings: $22M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$41M

Owner earnings$19M · 3% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$41M	$19M	$32M	$125M	$67M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$18M	+$15M	+$13M	+$14M	+$15M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$3M	+$3M	+$2M	+$2M	+$2M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$36M	+$20M	+$94M	−$136M	−$13M
Cash from operations	$27M	$58M	$142M	$6M	$70M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$8M	−$19M	−$13M	−$16M	−$18M
Owner earnings	$19M	$39M	$129M	($10M)	$52M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	−$17M	—	—
Free cash flow	$19M	$39M	$111M	($10M)	$52M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	7%	20%	-1%	9%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $3M), owner earnings is nearer $15M.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1035.7×

Comfortable

Operating income $54M ÷ interest expense $52K

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$25M

Net cash

Cash $39M − debt $13M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $25M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 103d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 44 + DIO 91 − DPO 32 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 12%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median, range 3%–37%; 12% latest = NOPAT $41M ÷ invested capital $346M

Industry peers: median 7%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 12% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 7%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -1%–20%; latest $19M = operating cash $27M − maintenance capex $8M

Industry peers: median 4%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 3% of revenue this year, a 7% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $3M of SBC) leaves $15M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 0.66×

Mostly cash-backed

Cash from ops $27M ÷ net income $41M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 127%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $24M ÷ Owner Earnings $19M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $19M of Owner Earnings, $24M (127%) went back to shareholders, $22M dividends, $2M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($3M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.45×

Harvesting

Capex $8M ÷ depreciation $18M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 4 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $648M

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Pass

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 3.97×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $13M vs $196M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −3%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $1.60/share (latest year $2.12), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $19.19/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Operating margin 11% → 7% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices but names price competition too — and the margin slipped, so the pressure is winning here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 11% early to 7% lately, median 8% — competition or costs are biting in.
Owner earnings growth +1%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 1% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · 1.7% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +0.3%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 10 of the years on record.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Jun 27, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$279M

Cash & short-term investments$23M
Receivables$81M
Inventory$167M
Other current assets$8M

Current liabilities$78M

Accounts payable$65M
Other current liabilities$13M

Current ratio3.57×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.43×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.29×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$201Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+9.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters5.7× → 3.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$318Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$8M$3M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$105Kcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $497M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$161M · 32%
Dividends$259M · 52%
Buybacks$8M · 2%
Retained (debt / cash)$69M · 14%

Returned to owners$267M
73% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $259M as dividends and $8M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$29.78
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 0M shares were bought for $8M, about $29.78 each.
Net change in share count2.5%
The diluted count rose from 19M to 20M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$1.11/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 0% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.
Return on what it retained23%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($138M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $31M, so each retained $1 added about 0.23 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$54M12% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity10%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$94Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $161M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	H.O. Woltz III	$2.5M	$4.0M	$52M
2022	H.O. Woltz III	$2.5M	$1.5M	($10M)
2023	H.O. Woltz III	$2.1M	$2.3M	$129M
2024	H.O. Woltz III	$2.1M	$1.7M	$39M
2025	H.O. Woltz III	$3.4M	$3.8M	$19M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

CEO pay ratio46:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$3M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 6% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Insteel Industries Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

None of the 5 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, Steel

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
WSWorthington Steel Inc.	$3.1B	11%	5.2%	12%	3%
SXCSunCoke Energy Inc.	$1.8B	—	7.8%	8%	6%
TWITitan International Inc. (DE)	$1.8B	13%	1.5%	2%	0%
MTUSMetallus Inc.	$1.2B	8%	0.3%	0%	3%
WORWorthington	$1.2B	17%	2.4%	4%	8%
ROCKGibraltar Industries Inc.	$1.1B	25%	9.6%	12%	11%
IIINInsteel Industries Inc.	$648M	15%	8.6%	13%	8%
NWPXNWPX Infrastructure Inc.	$526M	17%	8.3%	7%	4%
Group median	—	15%	6.5%	8%	5%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Insteel Industries Inc. has delivered.

Insteel Industries Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Insteel Industries Inc. earns about $53M on its 8.1% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 2.9% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($53M) Net of stock comp (−$4M) Steady-state · maintenance capex (($7M))

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+8%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+1%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow ($10M) on 19M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-07-15; net cash $9M. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($11M) runs well above depreciation ($18M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about ($7M), the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh IIIN against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Insteel Industries Inc. (IIIN), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/IIIN, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← IHRT its page in the Manual IIIV →

Industry order: ← GGB the Steel chapter MT →